This project is investigating the influence of child age and diagnostic status insofar as affecting emergent patterns of family interaction. Within a direct observation methodology, major dependent variables include patterns of conflict, influence, affect, and communication variability. The project will provide greater understanding of changes in family patterns as a function of the child's increasing development, and of the similarities and differences in such patterns in families containing disturbed versus normal children. In so doing, it would be hoped that results could provide meaningful guidelines for the design of subsequent longitudinal investigations of the relationships between family factors and the development of psychopathology. During this (first) year of the project, subject selection procedures were established, necessary videotaping equipment was installed, experimental procedures were pretested, subject recruitment procedures were initiated, and final data reduction procedures were established.